The present invention relates to a device for shearing material generally positioned in a horizontal fashion, which material may take different forms or shaped. More particularly, it concerns replacing most of the conventional types of shearing devices presently used for shearing a traveling or non-traveling product where its thickness, and/or shape varies considerably, or such variations may exist between different workpieces to be sheared.
In producing metallic strip, such as steel or aluminum, an ingot is usually caused to pass through several stands of a rolling mill line, which change the shape and form of the workpiece. A constant problem has existed when a hot bar travels from the last stand of a roughing train into the first stand of a finishing train in that the top and bottom sections of a leading end of the hot bar may separate into what is referred to as an "alligator mouth" making it difficult for the leading end to pass between a crop shear which cuts the leading end off on the fly. In the past it was therefore necessary to force the top and bottom portions together so that the leading end can then easily enter into the gap of a crop shear for severing thereof. If this did not work, then it involved interrupting the travel of the bar to physically removed the bar from the mill, resulting in downtime for the operation of the mill and decreased productivity.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a shearing device designed to easily shear the "alligator mouth" of a leading end off of a workpiece without making it necessary to stop the bar if it is traveling thereby increasing the productivity rate thereof.
Several other types of shearing devices are used in the production of a strip, such as crop shears, down or up cut shears commonly referred to as stationary guillotine shears, rotary shears, and rocking guillotine shears which are specially designed to take into account the operational characteristics of the mill and processing equipment, in addition to the physical condition of a workpiece including its shape and form, and which workpiece may either be moving or in repose. For instance, the ends of a stationary slab may be cut off by a slab shear; a stationary plate/or strip may be sheared to length by a down or an up-cut shear; a stationary plate may be sheared to length by a rocker type shear; or a travelling strip may be sheared by a rotary shear such as a crop shear mentioned previously.
These several shearing devices normally can perform only one particular cutting action and are so vastly different in design and operation as to require in some instances a certain expertise in order to optimize their functioning and efficiency; notwithstanding the high initial expense and operational costs involved in providing the many designs to perform the various shearing operations.
It is therefore a further object of the present invention to provide a simplified shearing device to replace these several different designs which performs one or a combination of the many types of shearing operations regardless of the shape or form of the workpiece whether the workpiece is moving or in repose, thereby eliminating some or all of the disadvantages inherent in providing the several different design shearing devices in a production line for metallic material.
In a broad application, it is a further object of the present invention to provide a simplified shearing device which can be selectively operated to perform a predetermined cut on several different kinds of material simply by controlling the shear's mechanical features so as to produce one or more of its many available modes of operation.
More particularly, two cooperative knives are provided where hydraulic piston cylinder assemblies are connected to one of the knives to initially operate to vertically position this knife in a parallel or non-parallel spaced-apart relationship relative to its cooperative knife, and the pressure in both cylinders may be further controlled during the cutting action to either affect a rocking or rolling motion for the vertically movable drum or a rocking motion combined with relatively higher frequency oscillations. The knives are mounted on rotatable drums and if the material is travelling, the knives are caused to rotate at substantially the same speed as the material to effect a cut on the fly; otherwise, the one drum is vertically moved toward the other knife drum.
And a still further object of the present invention is to provide a shearing apparatus for selectively performing more than one desired cutting action on the same material or different materials offering different shearing characteristics or requirements, comprising a first and second knife holding means arranged on opposite sides of the material to be sheared, an elongated knife means carried by each of said holding means arranged on their respective holding means to cooperate together to effect a cut, means for supporting said holding means in a manner that at least one is movable relative to the other to effect a cut, and power means for causing the opposite ends of said one holding means to selectively assume a parallel or non-parallel condition relative to the material and for causing said relative movement of said one holding means to effect a cut while in one of said assumed positions.